From 1953 to 1976, twenty-four U.S. Navy coastal minesweepers (MSCs) swept mines, searched the seafloor for downed aircraft, sunken ships and lost munitions, "showed the flag" in the Caribbean and throughout the Far East, and played a key role in the Vietnam War. Atlantic Fleet coastal minesweepers searched for a nuclear bomb buried in the sea bed off Savannah, Georgia, as a result of a midair collision between two U.S. Air Force aircraft and provided support for the unsuccessful Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba. MSCs based at Sasebo, Japan, conducted patrols off Vietnam to interdict smuggling of supplies by sea to the Viet Cong in the South. One, USS Vireo, participated in the destruction of an enemy gun runner. Much smaller minesweeping boats (MSBs) kept the Long Tau River, which passed through the dangerous "Forest of Assassins" and connected the South China Sea to Saigon, open to merchant vessels delivering military cargos to allied forces. Facing daily the possibility of death by Viet Cong mine or riverbank ambush, the thirteen boats of Mine Squadron Eleven Detachment Alfa comprised the first Navy unit to be awarded a Presidential Unit Citation for heroism by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Possessing too few minecraft to support its riverine combat operations, the U.S. Navy also pressed existing landing craft and newly built assault support patrol boats and minesweeping drones into these duties. The unheralded MSBs and steel-hulled minecraft collectively garnered four Presidential Unit Citations, three Meritorious Unit Commendations, and three Navy Unit Commendations. Significant numbers of the small enlisted crews that took the craft in harm's way received the Navy Cross, Silver Star and Bronze Star Medals for acts of heroism performed under fire.Photographs, maps, diagrams and tables, appendices and an index to full-names, places and subjects add to the value of this work.

Possessing insufficient minesweepers to protect U.S. harbors and bays as the threat of war in Europe spread, in the winter of 1939-40 the Navy began purchasing fishing vessels and modifying them to combat mines. One of them, Condor (AMc-14), first sighted the Japanese Type-A midget submarine that destroyer Ward (DD-139) sank on December 7, 1941 with the first shots fired by American forces during World War II. She would be one of six coastal minesweepers to receive a battle star. From boat- and shipyards across America came the largest production run of any World War II warship, 561 scrappy little 136-foot wooden-hulled vessels characterized by Arnold Lott in Most Dangerous Sea as "belligerent-looking yachts wearing grey paint." Although their designers envisioned that they would operate primarily in the vicinity of yards or bases, the YMSs (too numerous to be given names) would see action in every theater of war, earning almost 700 battle stars, twenty-one Presidential Unit Citations, and fifteen Navy Unit Commendations. YMSs were present in the North African campaign, in Sicily, at Anzio, Salerno, and elsewhere in Italy, and swept ahead of invasion forces at Normandy and in Southern France. In the Pacific, they operated in the Marshall Islands, New Guinea, Solomons, Treasury Island, Gilbert Islands, New Britain, Admiralty Islands, Guam, Palau, Leyte, Luzon, Manila Bay, Iwo Jima, Southern Philippines, Okinawa, and Borneo. Following the war, they cleared mines from the East China Sea, Yangtze River approaches, and throughout Japanese waters, and their activities gave rise to the proud slogan of the mine force: "Where the Fleet Goes, We've Been." During the Korean War, a mere sixteen auxiliary motor minesweepers (former YMSs) performed the bulk of mine clearance, often while inside the range of enemy coastal artillery, necessary for larger naval vessels to close the coast to support operations ashore. Garnering collectively 124 battle stars, seven Presidential Unit Citations, and seven Navy Unit Commendations, the men aboard these ships were then, and remain to date, the most highly decorated crews of minesweepers in the history of the U.S. Navy.

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